The Few Remaining Strands
by Kount Xero
Summary: Sequel to "Estranged." Squall finds memories of a friend from his orphanage days resurfacing, a friend nobody else seems to remember. Amidst this, Rinoa's rise to power in Timber creates a crisis that only SeeD can manage. R&R please. Rated M for swearing and a bit of gore. (Part 3/7 of a series.)
1. Prologue

"_**The Few Remaining Strands"**_

* * *

_Author's Note: This is the second part in a multi-part series. The first part is titled "Estranged" and it's in my profile._

* * *

**Prologue  
****(Dark Thing)**

**1**

_The stone floor is cold under his bare feet, and the distance from the room he shares with his best friend to the room he fears seems to have expanded tonight. The others are asleep and the lights are dim, but as he approaches to where he knows his friend has gone, he begins to sweat._

_He's afraid to go there._

_But, he can't leave his friend to the mercy of whatever is in Matron's room. Dark things live in there, terrible things, things he knows to be afraid of even without Matron telling him so._

_He calls out his friend's name, but nobody answers him. Stepping closer, he sees that the door to Matron's room is ajar._

_His eyes widen and he feels his breath get caught up in his throat._

_He calls for his friend again. He tries to step forward, but his legs have decided on their own that this is far enough. Matron would never leave the door open, things might escape, things might escape to find them and-_

_The door creaks open a little more. More. The sound makes him cringe._

_He wants to run, but he can't he can't abandon his friend to the dark thing._

_He abandons all caution and screams out his friend's name, and in response, black shapes start to emerge from the open door, like tainted blood oozing out of an open wound._

_He takes a deep breath, he has to warn the others, to warn everyone, he breathes..._

**2**

Selphie was pulled from the depths of dreamless sleep by the sounds she was used to, even before the month that they had shared the bed instead of the couch. She looked at him. He was on his back, body winding and springing with small intervals, a limb twitch here, a limb twitch there.

"No... no..."

Selphie rose an eyebrow. This was the first time he had spoken. The last vestiges of her sleep vanished. She propped herself up to her knees, the falling sheets making her shiver, and gently touched his shoulders.

"Squall..." she whispered, "Squall, hey..."

"No..."

Selphie sighed. She knew that there was only one thing she could do in this situation. She braced herself for what she now could do without thinking – catch him when he fell.

**3**

_...and he's trying to scream, but his breath is refusing to go out, choking him with the scream he's trying to let out. From his throat, the knot spreads, gripping his limbs, not letting go. He can't move, he can't escape._

_The dark thing in Matron's room is moving, slithering out of the door, oozing out of the opening..._

_Shadow-hands, clawing at the air, trying to find purchase, trying to touch, trying to grip, trying to take... coming to drag him, kicking and screaming, into the pitch-black heart of it._

_It. The abomination._

_A sound, reverberating in the air like icicles shattering around him, issues from the heart of darkness, and his limbs spring. His legs give out and he's right in front of the dark thing, and oh Hyne please don't let it take me please don't let it take me_ **Noooooooooo!**"

His body sprung up and he went right into her warm embrace.

**4**

Small hands, gentle hands, warm hands took his cheeks, arms restrain him.

"Shhhh..." she whispered, "Shhh, hey, I've got you. I've got you, it's okay. It's okay, everything's okay, shhh, you're with me."

Squall reeled his senses in and felt her warmth against the cold sweat covering his body. He sighed and eased into her embrace. Slowly, she laid him down on his back and, propped herself up on one elbow to watch him.

When he appeared to have calmed down enough, she spoke.

"What was it?"

Still trying to catch his breath, he answered.

"What..?"

"What was it? Was it the Time Compression?"

"No. No, it was... something else."

She snuggled closer. He embraced her.

"Squall, you're trembling..."

"Just a nightmare." He said, trying to keep his jaw from shaking, "Just a bad dream, that's all."

**5**

Selphie woke up to an empty bed.


	2. The Nameless

"_**The Few Remaining Strands"**_

**1. The Nameless**

**1**

Squall leaned against the railing of the balcony and stared at the point where, by his judgment, the horizon should have been. The wind running through his hair soothed him, and the total isolation of it, being distant from any kind of land for miles and miles comforted him.

He still had an hour to kill before his one-on-one with Seifer and the only other gunblade specialist in the Garden, a very promising girl named Jett, and he preferred to not engage anyone before that.

He breathed in, initially to sigh, and his nose picked up the scent of salt water and open air.

**2**

_The scent of salt water and open air dampened the cobblestones leading to the wave breakers. Squall, as always, had taken the lead, almost screaming for joy as he kept an even pace. He couldn't run like he could on the beach – the cobblestones were too slippery, a point that had been proven by Zell who, since then, sported a very interesting bruise on the left side of his face._

_The wave breakers were unnecessary initially, meant to give the ships sailing through a safe passage from the wild ocean waves, but at some points during some days, there'd be small waves, not even enough to wash, oh, for instance, a child climbing them for the hell of it._

_Squall looked over his shoulder to see if his friend was following him. Smiling, he called out._

"_Come on!"_

**3**

Come on, come on, remember. Remember, damn you, what was his name?

Squall managed that sigh he was aiming for after all, and felt his frustration go from a brief flicker to burning embers in his chest. It was on the tip of his tongue, and on the very fringes of his mind, conscious and unconscious, the specific thing he was trying to remember.

Squall dug into his arsenal of himself, and found out one solution. His default solution, really: consult _Biblis Tactica_.

Chapter Ten. Mnemonics and Memorization.

Sub-title Four: Periphery-to-Central, Environment-to-Actual.

Fine. The wavebreakers. They were going to the wavebreakers to wave-stand.

**4**

_Wave-standing wasn't a complicated game. The idea had been Selphie's – she had come up with the idea to first measure when the tides were too strong to climb up there, and when they were too weak to harm anyone._

_The idea was, the tides wouldn't remain too weak for too long – sooner or later, they'd have a rather strong streak. Not strong enough to kill anyone, but enough to knock someone off the wavebreaker. Those left standing would be the winners._

_Squall cleared the last few steps and there it was, the wavebreaker. It was a straight line of stone, atop which, rocks were placed at random positions. Squall didn't know how these things were made, but he was pretty sure that a lot of glue had went into making it._

_He turned his best friend and, after climbing onto the wavebreaker, held out his hand. His friend refused to help._

_Oh, tough guy. He smiled. He'd like this one._

**5**

He frowned. He didn't like this one at all.

The sub-title said to move from environmental elements (weather conditions, a crack on the wall) to gradually the object one desired to remember (face, name, ID number, secret code.) He had conducted his run-through just like he always had. This time, from a game that was being played to the immediate players, but he couldn't remember his face. He couldn't remember his name.

Why not..? What was impeding his memory?

"Squall, what are you doing here?"

**6**

"_Squall, what are you doing there?"_

_Squall turned to see Ellone, standing on the shore, right next to the wave-breaker, screaming._

"_Come back here, both of you!" she screamed, "Come on! Before the waves!"_

"_But Sis, we're wave-standing, the waves won't-"_

"_I don't care! Come back here, both of you!"_

_Squall hung his head in disappointment. Aw, man, it would have been awesome. He turned to his friend and said, "Let's go."_

_He didn't see the wave coming. It swept him off his feet and into the water. He flailed his arms, trying to get his bearings, trying to find out which was up and which was down._

**7**

There was no up or down with this one; just the inescapable reality of Selphie, standing right next to him, in the place where, for them, everything had begun.

"Want to tell me about it?" Selphie asked, smiling.

"I don't know what _it_ is, yet." Squall said.

"You didn't wait for breakfast this morning." She said, "I'm not complaining, it's just, breakfast is like, ritual to you. You worship that toast and jam."

"I don't _worship_-" Squall started, but seeing the amused smile on her face, realized that he had fallen for it.

"Oh, _yeah_, yeah, you do. I watched you. You smear the jam with exactly the same motions every morning – you even make your way through the toast with a pattern."

"Whatever."

"So, tell me about it."

Squall was about to ask her the question he had in mind, but then, something shifted in his memory.

**8**

The pieces disassembled, realigned and reassembled into a different thing altogether. Slightly pronounced cheekbones, full lips and a round chin. Piercing hazel eyes and chestnut hair that seemed to refuse to get into a proper shape. Inexhaustible energy, yet a serious side that Squall knew he wouldn't let others see.

The nameless friend...

**9**

"Squall?"

Squall looked to see Selphie watching him, half-curious, half-concerned. He smiled and asked:

"Do you remember Daniel?"


	3. The White Sorceress

"_**The Few Remaining Strands"**_

**2. The White Sorceress**

**1**

Squall looked up from the exam paper he was reading (and mercilessly marking) when the double doors of his office were opened, letting in a flustered Quistis. She threw herself on the guest chair and sighed. Squall knew that she would begin after a few moments.

"At times like these, I wish I smoked." She said.

Squall just glared at her.

"Your mole checked in about an hour ago." Quistis said, checking her watch, "About 19:30, I think. Xu got the intel, I thought I should have been the one to tell you."

"What?"

"News from Timber." Quistis said, "You're gonna love this..."

**2**

"_I hate this."_

_Selphie waited, knowing he wasn't finished._

"_I have his name, I have his face, but why did I forget..? Why don't you remember?"_

"_I don't know." Selphie said, "If you say he was there, I'll believe you, but that's because I'm not obsessed enough to sneak out your psych evaluations from the Infirmary."_

_Squall rose an eyebrow._

"_Rinoa's idea."_

"_What do you think can cause this?"_

"_The only cause we know for memory erosion or erasure is the Guardian Force. But that's kinda shoddy, I mean, you were the one who walked around with Eden constantly junctioned to you for the first few months after the War."_

"_So?"_

"_I'm saying, you are the one least likely to remember."_

**3**

"Do you remember that there was a time when Timber resistance meant you knew a guy who knew a guy who was once an intern at the Timber Maniacs, and all three of you could find a forest animal to name yourselves after, and then fight the system by loitering and hand-painting posters?"

Squall didn't quite know what to say to that description.

"Well, it's about to become more than that."

"What happened?"

"Your plant checked in." Quistis checked her watch, "And in about fifteen minutes, the sum total of Timber's resistance groups will be marching down Timber Square under the name of _The Forest_ to make a declaration."

"And that is?"

"They will declare Timber a free state."

Squall's jaw dropped.

"What..?"

"And that's not even the best part." Quistis said.

"It isn't?"

"They are calling _her_ name. They're calling her The White Sorceress."

**4**

"_Let me ask you a question." Selphie said, "Do you remember your favourite story book when you were little? The one you begged Ellone, and failing her, Matron, time and again to read to you, even though you sometimes recited it from memory? You actually learned to read with that book."_

_Squall thought about it. His favourite book. The one thing he had been exposed to, time and again. Something that would take less concentration and repetition to memorize than the damn _Biblis Tactica_._

_He found a void where that memory should have been._

"_I don't remember." He said, "I don't, it's... like it was never there. Like it never happened."_

"_I remember. Ask any one of the old gang. Ask Ellone, ask Matron. We remember."_

"_What was it? What was the book called?"_

_Selphie smile warmly. She pulled him in and kissed him._

"_You looked so lost." She said, "It was titled _The White Sorceress._"_

**5**

"The White Sorceress? Is it like how it was with Edea?"

"I'm not sure." Quistis said, "But we're likely to find out."

"What about Caraway?" Squall asked.

"Caraway seems oblivious. We had two SeeDs in Deling, we raised them to check it out. No military deployment in Deling yet."

Squall reached for the intercom console built into his desk. His fingers danced on the touch screen until he found the Communication Center button. He tapped on it, and after two rings, the other side picked up.

"_Communications."_

"This is General Leonhart. Call up Galbadia Garden and get Irvine Kinneas on the line."

"_Yes sir."_

"Why Irvine?" Quistis asked.

"If Galbadia Garden gets involved, or worse, sides with her, everything goes to shit." Squall said, "He needs to stay neutral."

"_Sir, Headmaster Kinneas cannot be reached."_

"Bypass their net if you have to, just-"

"_He's not in Galbadia Garden, we have already checked his office and his suite."_

Squall and Quistis exchanged a look, that confirmed their greatest fears.

"Thank you." Squall said, "That'll be all."

He closed the line and leaned back. They looked at each other, but didn't speak.

"This isn't good." Squall said, "He's going to Timber. Probably to back her up."

"Any suggestions?"

**6**

"_I don't know, really." Selphie said, "If I did, I would be following them, instead of watching you... be like this."_

_Squall glared at her._

"_Like how?"_

"_This. Hell-bent on a specific thing, blind to everything else. Reminds me of the time you grabbed a space-suit and rushed out the airlock."_

"_...it all worked out."_

"_So should this. Don't worry about it."_

_Her fingers trailed across his hair and he shivered. He smiled._

"_But the question is the same." He said, "Do you remember Daniel?"_

"_No. I don't."_

**7**

"Why not?" Quistis asked.

"Because I will be handling this myself." He said, and he pushed the chair and stood.

"The Ragnarok is already primed and waiting. I had eight members of my Trepies on stand-by as a possible strike team."

Squall grabbed his greatcoat from the coat rack next to his desk and slipped it on.

"You're not coming with me." Squall said, "I'm taking Selphie and Xu."

"What!?" Quistis voice rose instantly, "What do you mean I'm staying here? I am the only one of you properly trained in negotiations and diplomacy! How the hell do you presume to do anything without that?"

"I'll manage. I know Rinoa and she knows me – she'll respond more to me."

"And, Irvine?"

"He's avoidant of me. Which will be useful."

Quistis averted her gaze. _If only he knew._

"Besides, I need you here." He said, "You and Seifer are the only veterans that I can trust to control a crowd. If push comes to shove..."

Squall lingered. He knew that Quistis wouldn't like this, but he had to have confirmation that she had accepted it.

"Fine. What about my strike team?"

"They can wait. So can Ragnarok. I need to make a stop first."

"Where?"

"The Guardian Force Repository."


	4. The Devil's Answers

"_**The Few Remaining Strands"**_

**3. The Devil's Answers**

**1**

The night skies, dark, were rolling outside the window of his seat. Down below, in the distance and fast approaching, were the small, pale halos of Deling's lights.

But Squall was twenty-four minutes ago and inside an elevator.

**2**

_The elevator doors hissed as they opened. Squall stepped into the Guardian Force Repository. The cavernous, dome-shaped room had a central pillar, a mixture of adamantine and glass made from ground energy crystals. Connected to this pillar were six columns, the sixth marked by the elevator shaft. The columns met at the ceiling, and on the ground level, at the main pillar, and they fed into the machinery._

_Squall knew, from what the Garden Faculty and the Tech Team had told him, that inside the pillar were the Guardian Force, existing in their own, small pocket universe – junctioned to an empty vessel, which was hooked to the machine itself._

_Estharian technology, built by Odine, obvious from the pattern of unnecessary cruelty, as they weren't sure if the repository host was really just an empty shell._

_Across from the elevator shaft was the console. Squall approached it and tapped the touch-screen on._

_It took finger and hand print, retinal scan and a small drop of blood for DNA verification. Then, the main menu appeared._

_With practiced ease, Squall cycled through the menus. Eden, Diablos, Shiva, Cerberus and Siren were on standby. Squall thought about it._

_He chose Diablos._

**3**

"Speak of Diablos..." Selphie murmured.

"What?" Squall asked.

"There's a chopper waiting atop Caraway's mansion."

"Hope he's not going there." Xu said, "It'll redefine 'clusterfuck'."

"I was gonna say that!" Selphie said, giggling, "But yeah, hope he's not going to Timber. Hell, I hope we are not going to Timber but to Fisherman's Horizon for those yummy scone things, but no. No scone for me."

"If we make it through this without a war being declared, I'll buy you so much of it, you'll burst." Xu said.

"Watch it, I have a wicked appetite and a tendency to hold people up to their word."

Squall watched them, silent in his contemplation, and a part of him wondered how they could do that – just channel themselves through words.

_**4**_

_The repository machine allowed GFs to channel themselves through their empty host and into the mind of the one standing by. It wasn't like junctioning, where one had to allow the entity to occupy a space in one's essence – it was more like talking to a hallucination of the GF._

_Diablos appeared in front of him, sitting down cross-legged, its wings draped around its body. It looked burning embers at Squall and grinned a razor-sharp grin._

So, the master calls.

"_I do. I need to know something. Which memories did you take from me? Which memories do the Guardian Force take?"_

_Diablos paused. Its tail stared to lazily swish back and forth._

You might as well ask me what junctioning is, master.

"_Assume I don't know."_

Para-magic works with memories – junctioning a spell is the same as remembering what it is and how it works, usually the first time of casting it. With Guardian Force, the process is different.

_Squall remembered something similar from one of his cadet classes, but he still wanted to see if Diablos would say anything new._

We inhabit memories in order to exist. Through the memories we inhabit, we are junctioned to our wielder.

_"When you say inhabit..."_

**5**

"I mean, this is really the first time in recorded history something like this have happened." Xu said, "I don't know well-versed you are," Selphie shook her head, ", but the Timber resistance always was just a bunch of splintered, directionless groups, inspired by a single group calling themselves the Forest. They were trying to do good, sure, but on a scale that their numbers, or resources, wouldn't permit."

"What I still don't get," Selphie said, ", is why they're flocking around Rinoa. When we met her, she was just the leader of a small operation, and that was only 'cause she was Caraway's daughter."

"Didn't she have any cred?" Xu asked, "Did she get beaten by Caraway's enforcement officers or have a loved one be shipped to the D-District Prison, something?

"Nope. None. She got to the Garden because she used to date Seifer, she got Squall and me and..." her voice stumbled, she choked for a moment, but quickly regained her composure, "...Zell. Yeah, that was dumb luck."

"I don't get it either." Xu said.

**6**

_Diablos grinned widely. Squall shivered._

It is simple. We appear in the memories we choose. You remember us, and thus, we are junctioned. We get into a memory and we stay there for as long as we are junctioned.

"_So why do we forget?"_

The host mind can't take the intrusion, can't take our presence, because our presence isn't natural. It calls into question the validity of the memory itself. Even if we were to leave the memory, our presence is still remembered, and the host buries the memories we have inhabited. Sometimes, many times, so deep that we have to take more in order to survive.

"_Is there a chance we can remember again?"_

_Diablos hung his head. Then, he titled it to the side and cast a suspicious look at Squall, as if unsure how his words would affect him._

Yes, but no memory inhabited by junctioning a Guardian Force returns undamaged.

"_Thank you."_

Anything to please, master.

_Squall's fingers tapped on the screen and dismissed Diablos' vision. The world returned to focus and all he could hear was the deep hum of the machinery._

**8**

_Squall's fingers tapped on the screen and he called Eden._

_The Guardian Force didn't appear. Instead, it's form was abstracted into ones and zeros first, and then, into a mess of symbols on a seemingly floating screen. The words of Eden shaped themselves from strange symbols._

**QUERY: THE COMPATIBLE HOST REQUESTS JUNCTION?**

"_Yes." Squall said, "I am not going out there without you."_

**STATEMENT: JUNCTION REQUEST ACCEPTED. LOADING...**

_Squall felt his mind shake, only a shudder, as Eden entered._

**9**

The Ragnarok's landing shook the seats. Squall looked outside to see where they were. They appeared to be just outside of the main entrance of the town, curiously missing its regular two guards.

He stood up and got the case of his gunblade. He opened it and retrieved his weapon. Slightly-curved blade, small caliber barrel on the hilt, right under the sharp side. Griever engraving along the length of the blade. Straight handle, trigger mechanism exposed only by twisting the handle in a certain way. He felt the familiarity of the weapon and wished to not have to use it that night.

He looked at Selphie, standing there with her nunchaku and Xu, with her dual, silver pistols.

"Let's go." He said and got on the ramp to get off the spaceship.


	5. The Timber Rally

"_**The Few Remaining Strands"**_

**4. The Timber Rally**

**1**

_I learned very young the meaning of the words "we are not discussing this." Because those words that always started it. My dad wouldn't discuss this, and my mom wouldn't discuss anything else. I would often be told to take my food and go to my room, and from there I got to hear their voices rising with every passing snide remark._

_I often snuck to the staircase right above the foyer and ate there, watching the fight evolve through double doors standing ajar._

_I learned that wars don't just start, there is a rhythm to how they get going. In my experience, a war starts like this: something small happens. A wrong remark, a sideways glance, a step in the wrong direction. Then, it is met with an immediate reaction. The reaction is big, it's not like the move that sparked it, just a tad bit on the excess side. Tit for tat plus, a bigger reaction follows._

_I watched this for months, every bite of the food growing more bitter and more inedible than the previous one – the entire experience of eating souring as their voices got louder. More and more until I had no stomach for another bite._

_The earliest memories I have belong to my parents fighting, all because my dad was... well, I'm not that sure exactly what he was anymore, as my memories now are hand-in-hand with all the resistance literature I was exposed to throughout the years._

**2**

"General Caraway is a tyrant, who, upon rising on the wings of the power that he took from the people, refused and still refuses to surrender to them their most basic rights! The right of assembly, the right of union, the right of free speech, the right of free press and last, but not least, the right to put forward and freely elect, their representatives! These are basic rights that we must have in order to fulfill our duties towards the Galbadian Government!"

Voices cheering. Hands clapping, men, women, children on the shoulders of their fathers and mothers all drunk with the rush of the moment.

Three Galbadian soldiers watching on the sidelines, unsure what to do, with one of them frantically shouting into the portable com-caster he has. Good, I thought, let him know.

TV Cameras broadcasting the whole thing live, no Adel to muddle the signals, nothing to stop the rest of Galbadia from learning. Nothing to stop me.

Irvine, right by my side, arms crossed, smiling. Watts and Zone, both holding machine guns, stronger than ever.

My voice, becoming our voice.

"If there is one thing that Caraway did right, it was to show us that we needed to stand together, to stand united, to stand as a single fist raised against his tyranny!"

**3**

_If my father did one thing right, it was that he split my custody with my mother. I spent every other month with her._

_My mother lived in Timber, and mostly, she let me do what I wanted. She often took me out herself, and when she couldn't, she let me go off on my own. She had a few instructions for me to follow, and it was agreed that as long as I followed them, I'd be fine. The instructions were simple things, but as a little girl, they meant the world to me._

_Don't go too deep into the forest. Run if you see a monster. Don't mix with the Timber Maniacs types. Don't go too near those with a leaf on their chest – this one, I'd later learn, was because those with leaves on their chests belonged to the rebellion against my father's rule. They was only one group back then, known just by the name, the Forest._

**4**

"We are the Forest! This is the name for the people who would stand up for themselves – the name that has been uniting us for years, while keeping us separate! We aren't Owls, Fox, Wolves, Chocobo, Funguar, or anything else – we are the people! We are the Forest! All as One!"

Voices, loud and in unison, almost frantically, start chanting the slogan. _All as One! All as One! All as One! All as One!_ I raise my hands, and the screams rise, and when I lower them, they stop. It's as if I'm the ringleader of this strange, strange circus.

**5**

_I used to think that the resistance was like a circus or something. They were everywhere. Fliers on the walls, with words I couldn't read and when I could, couldn't understand. Voices, scary, booming voices amplified by the bullhorns, shouting at the square before being tagged by my father's soldiers. They'd run, the soldiers would chase, and I, on the sidelines, watching, would laugh._

_I thought it was all a game, because, in a day or two, they'd be back to do it all over again._

**6**

"This isn't a gathering that's going to repeat for years, not achieving anything! This is a declaration!"

Applause.

"We are a free people!"

Applause. Applause.

"And I, on behalf of those that put me here, hereby declare Timber a sovereign, free state!"

Thunderous applause and a roar of voices screaming, rising and washing over me, and I trembled. I trembled, and this, _this_ was the greatest feeling in the world.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a cadet hand a bullhorn to one of the three soldiers. I almost smiled, I knew what was going to happen.

"_Everyone! Will you listen to me, please!"_

The silence was so loud, you could hear a feather dropping.

"_You are here to disperse immediately! General Caraway's orders! You are inciting to riot!"_

I can feel those below starting to stir as the soldier linger, looking more and more unsure of his position as the seconds ticks on. I'm about to raise my hand, for them to seize the soldiers, to strip them of their uniforms and hang them out to dry, when Squall, carrying his gunblade and flanked on both sides by Selphie and Xu appear, and I have to scream for everyone to stand their ground.


	6. The Negotiations

"_**The Few Remaining Strands"**_

**5. The Negotiations**

**1**

Rinoa was standing atop a makeshift stage. She was wearing an elegant, if too glamorous, white dress and had in her hand what Squall could only guess was parchment. Also up on stage were Watts, Zone and, as Squall had feared, Irvine. The crowd gathered, he already knew one way or another: the members of small, often joke-based resistance groups.

He reversed his grip on the gunblade, which was followed by Selphie and Xu following him by taking neutral stances. Feeling that he was the only thing standing between the Galbadian soldiers and their lynching, Squall decided not to move an inch.

"Rinoa!" he called out.

Rinoa didn't react at all. Squall shook, but only Selphie, who was used to seeing his eyes shift their focus when he did, noticed.

**2**

"_I notice, ya know."_

_Daniel was sitting on Squall's bed, swinging his legs back and forth. Squall, too busy drawing the picture of a brave knight carrying a gunblade defend a princess from a Ruby Dragon on ink-stained paper with half-broken crayons, looked up at him._

"_Notice what?"_

"_You always draw Elle."_

"_I do not!"_

"_Yes, yes you do. Look, you're drawing her now. That's the brave knight. Who is he?"_

"_Sir Lion-Hearted. She's," Squall pointed at the girl, "The White Sorceress."_

"_So it's you as Elle's knight."_

"_It's not me! I'm not lion-hearted."_

"_But you like lions."_

"_They represent great strength and pride. That's what Sis says."_

"_I notice something else, too."_

**3**

Squall also noticed that Rinoa's supporters, all of them, were armed with some kind of weapon - anywhere between chair legs and rifles.

"Squall, how nice of you to join us!" Rinoa said, giggling, "Are you here just as you, or are you here to tell me Ocean Garden will have nothing to do with any of this?"

"Both." Squall said, "I represent the Garden, and I can't take any position, for or against, what you're trying to do here."

"I for one," Xu said, ", am glad someone's finally stepping up and taking control."

"Who are you?" a scruffy-looking teenager asked.

"My name's Xu. I was once a member of the Forest Geezard, and I'm here to say, we didn't come here to stop you."

"Rinoa, we need to have a word, now and in private." Squall said, "It'll take two minutes, and after that, you'll be back on that stage."

Rinoa considered it. What would be the harm..?

"Agreed. Just you and me?"

"Just you and me."

Squall glanced sideways at Selphie, who, despite not being very happy with the outcome, was standing her ground. Squall, nevertheless, felt the need to tell her something, anything.

"It's the only way." He said.

**4**

"_No, it isn't." Squall said._

"_But why not?" Selphie countered as she put on her greatcoat, "Quistis and Xu are the only veterans trained in diplomacy! I don't know thing one about situations like these, and neither do you, so how isn't it a good idea?"_

"_I trust Quistis to contradict me." Squall said, "I trust her to take the opposing stance, argue the other point. I trust her to always second-guess me. Where we're going, I need someone to have my back, to trust me to act for as best an outcome as I can."_

"_I won't support you where I disagree with you." Selphie said._

"_I know that." Squall said as they got out to the hall. He locked the door, "I know you will stop me if you think it's necessary, and I know you won't stop me unless. _She_ would stop me regardless."_

_With a finger, Squall gently tilted Selphie's head up and kissed her._

"_I'm counting on you." He said._

"_Oh, you better." Selphie said, "This thing goes south, I won't be just watching from the sidelines." Then she sighed, "I never thought I'd say this, but I kinda miss the days when it was just about drinks and talks."_

**5**

They went into the nearby pub. Squall went to the bar and sat upon a stool. Rinoa followed suit and took the stool next to him. Looking at the choices within his reach, Squall was pleased to find some whiskey just waiting there, right next to a glass.

Squall poured himself some whiskey, and passed Rinoa the bottle of cherry martini. She found her own glass and filled it up. Irvine, standing behind her, crossed his arms. The scruffy youth that had asked Xu who she was simply tapped his fingers on his club. Selphie didn't move, and Xu simply stood there.

"When you said you might make a difference..." Squall started.

"Haven't I?" Rinoa smiled and took a sip, "It didn't take much effort at all. Just a lot of deliberation, and hey, here we are."

"I see that." He almost smiled, but why they were there stopped him.

"Say it." She said.

"What?"

"Say it."

"This has to stop." Squall said, "I'm sorry."

"Knew it!" she threw her hands to the air, "Knew that the moment I did something worthwhile, you would show up and tell me I couldn't. Why can't I?"

"There's one simple reason." Selphie said, "Hell, one very simple reason."

"And that is?" Rinoa asked.

"Your father won't allow it – it won't make sense to him."

**6**

"_Really? What else?" Squall asked._

"_Matron."_

_Squall shirked from the implication._

"_What about Matron?"_

"_Have you ever been in her room?"_

_Squall didn't answer. Daniel got off the bed and crouched next to him._

"_Have you?"_

"_...I don't wanna go in there."_

"_The door is always closed and locked. I checked. She goes in and out of the room but never through the door. I think she has a secret passage or something."_

"_I don't wanna know."_

"_Why not?"_

"_It's scary. Scary things are behind that door."_

"_You haven't seen what's behind that door."_

"_I don't wanna see."_

"_You are right. You aren't lion-hearted."_

_Squall could only stare after Daniel as he left and wonder what made him so scared. He looked at the picture he was drawing. It was ruined now, it didn't make sense anymore._

**7**

"I'm not a baby anymore, I'm not a child – my actions don't have to be sanctioned by my father! They don't have to make sense to him!"

"Have you read the Book of Galbadian Law?" Xu asked.

"What does that have to do with anything? That's his law, not mine."

"On the contrary, the book was written by the founders of this nation, and most of it, even your father follows. You can't declare any given part of Galbadia a free state - that's why what you're doing is called inciting to riot."

"I just did. I just made the declaration."

"Then that means General Leonhart and we have little time to get ourselves out of here before your father follows the letter of the law."

Squall downed his glass and slammed it on the bar.

"What you're doing here," he said, "means well, but it's hare-brained, childish and poorly executed. The fact that he's," he pointed at Irvine, ", here further means the only play you had, the Garden, is now out of your hands."

"What?" Irvine asked.

"The moment you joined an anti-government group," Xu said, ", you have committed treason. This automatically nullifies any official positions you may hold, including that of Garden Headmaster."

Selphie looked at Irvine. He seemed shaken by the news, only now realizing just what the hell he had done. She couldn't help but smile. Good. Let him be shaken, let him see it all go to shit. Let him reap what he's sown.

Rinoa rose a hand to her temple. Squall could see her teeth clenching.

"No. This is going to work." She said, "This is going to work. It has to."

"Good luck."

Squall headed to the back exit, Selphie and Xu in tow. Rinoa called out after him.

"Won't you stay?" she asked, "Help me out there?"

"You're on your own."

**8**

_Squall, in a fit of anger, took his picture and crumpled up the paper. He threw it. The paper ball bounced off the brick wall and harmlessly fell. He took it, opened it up and started to tear it to shreds until the idea he had had was confetti in the air._

_He wasn't a Knight, and he couldn't save any Princess, and that was that._


	7. The Discrepancy

"_**The Few Remaining Strands"**_

**6. The Discrepancy**

**1**

Squall closed the double doors of his office behind him and sighed. His mind was working overtime, overshadowed by Eden constantly calculating probabilities of every scenario he could think of. The GF was confirming his worst fears, that an outcome in favor of Rinoa was so near impossible that it might as well have been.

He threw himself onto his chair. It wasn't that he didn't want to join Selphie in a warm, comfortable, restful couch, drink a drink and let her closeness soothe him – it was just that now was around the time that something would be happening in Timber, and he needed to know.

Even if there wasn't, there was one last phone call to make tonight. His fingers tapped through the touch screen menus and he called up Communications.

"_Communications."_

"It's General Leonhart. Get President Loire on the line."

"_The official line closed about half an hour ago, sir. Would you like me to try the emergency line?"_

Squall considered it.

"No. It's not that urgent."

Squall looked up from his desk and froze. Wearing those khaki shorts and the blue polo shirt he always loved, standing right in the middle of his office's carpeting with his hands behind his back, was Daniel, not a day older than he had begun to remember him.

_Squall..._

**2**

"_Sir? Hello?"_

"Yeah?" Squall said, his attention completely focused on Daniel. How could he be standing there, smiling, patiently waiting for the grown-up to finish his conversation?

"_Is everything alright?"_

"Yes. Yes. Good night."

Squall shut off the line and, moving as he was lifting a string of china shops, got up to his feet. Daniel was standing there, still shuffling his feet, trying, in vain, to hide his impatience.

Squall walked around his desk and came to stand right in front of the boy.

_Hello._

"Hello." He said, "Hyne..."

_Was that important?_

"Was what important?"

_What you were doing. Was it important?_

"Not right now."

_Tag!_

Daniel reached and tapped Squall's leg. Squall felt the fabric of his pants move and Daniel, now giggling wildly, turned around and ran. Squall took off after him, launched towards the door.

**SENSORY DISCREPANCY**

**RECOMMENDATION: REEVALUATION OF SENSORY FEEDBACK.**

**3**

Squall pulled the double doors open and got to the corridor. Daniel was just on the other end, running. His laughter was bouncing off the walls and Squall took off after him.

**SENSORY DISCREPANCY.**

Squall pushed Eden's voice away and concentrated. The hallway after his office split into two sections, both half-circles that converged on the walkway to the elevator. Daniel would have to go by that common pathway in all cases. He ran straight ahead.

Daniel's laughter traced the halls, his footsteps, quick and urgent, tapped a rhythm that followed him along.

**SENSORY DISCREPANCY.**

"Shut up, Eden!"

Squall stopped right in front of the elevator and turned around. He was ready. He was waiting.

**4**

_He was ready. He was waiting. He was keeping a safe distance because he was sure that the creature, whatever it was, would respond to their presence. Daniel, on the other hand, had a tree branch in his hand and was poking the creature rather gently with it, as if afraid to do it harm but too curious to not engage it._

"_Daniel, it's getting late..." Squall said, "Matron will be looking for us now."_

"_Aren't you curious?" Daniel asked._

_Squall had to admit that he was very curious. The creature didn't look like much – a glittering, black fish, gorging with what Squall thought was icky, icky sickness. It didn't have fins, instead, it had a metal railing. It's mouth was a beak, and it was open, letting loose a spiked tongue._

"_I think it's sick." Daniel said._

"_It is! So let it go! We can't help it."_

"_Maybe we can just... I don't know, get it to Matron. Maybe she can help."_

"_I don't think we can carry it. It looks heavy."_

_The creature huffed out a breath. It's tongue slowly retreated into its beak, and after, the beak moved. The creature made a sound, made a succession of sounds. Squall didn't understand, and he doubted Daniel could._

"_What is it?" Daniel said, "Tell us."_

_The creature exhaled. Then, nothing, not a sound came._

**5**

When nothing, not a sound, not a sight, came, Squall decided to seek Daniel out. He tracked the hallways twice, both times with different patterns. Nothing. When he returned to his starting position, Eden saw fit to surface once again.

**SENSORY DISCREPANCY.**

"What is it!?" Squall snapped, "What discrepancy?"

**CEREBRAL CORTEX PROCESS DOES NOT MATCH SENSORY INPUT.**

"What does that... my senses perceive nothing, but my mind does?"

**CORRECT. HOST IN HALLUCINATORY STATE.**

Squall ran a hand through his hair.

"Long day." he said, "Could've sworn..."

The hum of the elevator was the only sound in the hallway.

**6**

Upon hearing the door lock disengage, Selphie looked up from her guitar and at Squall. Her heart sank when she saw the look on his face. The same look she had seen for quite a while before they had started to share the same bed. She knew his pathway: straight to the fridge. Extract bottle, grab glass from the counter, pour drink, say nothing for the duration of the first glass, pour second. She sometimes thought he could walk through this blindfolded. The very thought of going back there chilled her to the bone.

"Do you remember that I went missing one day?" Squall said, "It was some time in Autumn. Just around dinner?"

Selphie rose an eyebrow.

"Yeah. Matron was worried sick. She wondered out loud that she didn't know if you did it to spite her, and then regretted ever saying it, or saying it to us."

Squall sat down next to her and set his glass on the coffee table. Selphie turned to him, her brow creased.

"Don't worry." He said, "It's not like that."

"I can't help it..." she said, "Ever since Zell, I... can't help but think if I miss something, miss that one crucial moment where everything shifts, somebody else will end up dead. I barely reeled you in the last time."

"I don't die that easily." Squall said.

Selphie put her finger to her temple.

"Tell it to my brain."

Squall smiled.

"I know you don't remember Daniel, but do you remember what Matron said when she got me... got us, me and Daniel, back?"

"She said..." Selphie struggled for a moment, and then, "She said that there were two things we should never do: go into Matron's room, and you should never mess around with monsters."

"I remember..." Squall said, "I'm remembering more and more. I remember why Matron was so mad at us."

"Squall, you're getting in too deep with this..." one hand caressed his cheek, "You're just like how you used to be when... you know."

Squall held her hand with his.

"It's important."

"Why?"

"Because Daniel and I, we... Hyne, Selphie, we found a dying GF that day." Squall said.


	8. The Deliberation

"_**The Few Remaining Strands"**_

**7. The Deliberation**

**0**

_He shouldn't be doing this, he shouldn't be doing this._

_That was all he could think about as he inched closer to the door to Matron's room. There was no sound coming from there, because, he knew, there was no sound in there. Matron didn't exist inside of his world, her room was part of another, and where her room was, exactly, he didn't want to know._

_But Daniel, bless his curious head, couldn't do without finding out._

_Squall believed it had been an hour since Daniel had gone into Matron's room, but the wall clock (the glow-in-the-dark Moogle clock) told him it had only been five minutes._

_Thinking of the brave knight, like that in the movie, Squall took a deep breath, stepped forward and opened the door._

_He was repelled by an unseen force, a force that threw him to the ground. His limbs locked up, paralyzed with fear, kept him from lifting his head and looking at the room. Daniel was in there. Whatever had pushed him, Daniel was with, right now._

_Squall lifted his head up to see and all he could see was a swirling, black mass that was shifting, squirming, changing shape, changing size..._

_And in the pitch-black, something was screaming._

**1**

The sound of the phone shrieking its high-pitched song made Squall jump. His senses leaping to overload, he drank in the room in a split-second. Pants by the dresser, gunblade right next to them, Selphie, asleep still by some miracle. He got up, grabbed his pants and rushed into them.

Middle of the night. Dark outside, dark inside.

Squall then stumbled into the living room by flicking on every light on the way, and then practically threw himself onto the couch. Reaching for the phone, he picked up the receiver.

"Yes?" he said, heart in his throat, "Yes, this is the General?"

"_Call from President Loire, sir."_

Squall checked the Moogle wall clock. 2:05.

"_Hello, son."_

"This is being recorded, you know." Squall said, "What can I do for you, Mister President?"

"_There's no easy way to say this, so I'll just say it. About two hours ago, Fury Caraway declared martial law. About ten minutes after that, his soldiers opened fire on a citizen group making a statement by gathering near an impromptu stage by the Timber Maniacs building. Caraway's PR tells me that this group was inciting to riot."_

The last vestiges of sleep evaporated. Squall sat up and cursed.

"_There is no confirmed casualty count, and they fought back. About half of them, I am told, were carrying firearms. They responded in kind, of course. The White Sorceress is holed up in some home near Timber Maniacs, under siege."_

"I'll put you on hold for a second, I need to check something."

Squall pressed the hold button. He was dialing communications' internal number when Selphie, rubbing her eye and shuffling her feet, came to the living room.

"Whassat about?" she asked.

"I don't know. Could you whip up some breakfast, yes, this is the General. When was the last logged transmission of Joaqim and what did it say?"

Selphie felt her heart skip a beat upon hearing the name.

"Thank you." Squall said. He got Laguna on the line again. He looked Selphie dead in the eye, and spoke to both of them at once, "We have a problem."

**2**

"_If I thought we'd have a problem, I'd try the alternatives." Squall said._

"_You're risking the life of a very good covert operative just because he seems willing." Quistis asked._

"_I didn't just throw him to the fucking wolves, Quistis, I asked him to review the assignment. If he had said no, I would explore alternatives, like I said. He had the option of refusing from the start."_

"_Bull-shit." Quistis said, "He'd be saying no to the Hero of the Second Sorceress War. You don't just do that."_

"_That's not what it is."_

"_Isn't it? Can you imagine the amount of prestige packed into a simple affirmation from us? We aren't just veterans, Squall, we are heroes. At least in their eyes..."_

"_What does that have to do with anything? Joaqim has deep covered for us before – he spent the better part of the Second Sorceress War in Galbadia Garden. He doesn't need my approval. He doesn't need anything."_

"_Except a mission. He'll tail Rinoa. Ever consider what might happen if Rinoa were to discover that?"_

"_She won't."_

"_She might."_

"_She won't."_

"_If you were her, and you had found out that your ex-lover / knight was spying on you, what would you do?"_

**3**

"_It's not an issue of what I _will_ do, because I _can_ do so little." _Laguna said,_ "For better or worse, Galbadia is a separate nation, and the Estharian Parliament has already decided on a policy of non-intervention. My hands are tied."_

Selphie placed a plate on the coffee table. Two slices of toast, jam on both, with a little cheese on the side. He grabbed her hand and kissed it in appreciation. Selphie sat next to him and started on her own breakfast.

"Do you plan to take any side in the foreseeable future?" Squall asked.

"_I can't say, because I don't know. This is so far from what any of us ever expected."_

"I'll cut to the chase, then." Squall said, "Would you support me if I went in now?"

"_What?"_

"The only way to diffuse this situation is for a third party to go in, and I don't see anybody else."

"_I can't guarantee you anything. But Kiros has something to offer..."_

"_If you go in," _Kiros said, _"You'll be responsible for whatever happens next. Remember that – you will be breaking the supposed neutrality of Ocean Garden."_

"Regardless, while you're on the line... I need a favor."

"_Such as?"_ Laguna asked.

"No matter how the Timber situation plays out, I need access to Odine after the operation."

"_Any particular reason why?"_ Kiros demanded.

**4**

"_Why not?" Quistis asked, "Why wouldn't she lose her shit?"_

"Because_, she will not find out. If I thought there was a considerable, even marginal risk of that, I wouldn't put Joaqim out there."_

"_I'm just no sure. You came to me, right?" Quistis said, "You came to me to second-guess you. Here I am, and all you can tell me in return is a playground-level, no-she-won't."_

"_Unless Rinoa has mind-reading powers, she won't find out. If she actually has mind-reading powers, she already knows."_

"_But we have no way of knowing any of that."_

"_Exactly." Squall said._

"_This is a shit plan." Quistis said, "That's what I see."_

"_What else do you want me to do?" Squall asked, "There is simply no other way!"_

"_Anything we can do to avoid this." Quistis said._

**5**

"_I'll see what I can do."_

"You'll know what I did in an hour, two at the most." Squall said, and he hung up. He went for his toast. It was cold, but he couldn't complain. He took a bite, and leaned back to find Selphie, coffee mug in hand, watching him closely.

"Don't tell me..." she said.

"Joaqim is dead." Squall said, "His last transmission was cut short."

"How do we know he's-"

"He died in the middle of it."

Selphie took a sip and swallowed hard.

"What did he say?"

"The last complete sentence was, _the revolution is beginning._"

Selphie's eyes widened.

"We need to go." She said. She got up and Squall followed her.


	9. The Sorceress Rises, I

"_**The Few Remaining Strands"**_

**8. The Sorceress Rises, I**

**1**

I hold Watts, and, with one hand, press on the gunshot wound. He screams out, his body strains to move, but I've cast Stop on him, and his limbs can't move without me dispelling it.

"Shhhh" I say, "I'm trying to heal you... fucking..."

A series of gunshots erupt and the window right on top of us is punctured. Little shards of glass rain down on us.

Zone whips out from his corner, aims his machine gun, returns fire. The rattle of the gun pounds in my temples. I try to concentrate, but with Zone trading insults with the soldiers outside, the owner of the home cowering in the corner with her son, and Watts slowly bleeding out under my palm, it's all I can do to keep from losing my shit as well.

I don't know where Irvine has gone – he vanished when we first scattered.

"Ri..." Watts chokes and spits blood. Oh Hyne, oh Hyne... "Rin, we're... not g... gonn... gonna make..."

I shut my eyes. Push it out, push it all out, all of the noise and the screams and the gunfire and the sound of everything I wanted falling to fucking pieces and...

**2**

_I'm nine years old._

_I'm staring down to the street from the top of the Timber Maniacs building. Behind me are the desks, stacked up and barely leaving any room for me to run, and down below, there are lots of people with the leaves on their chests. They're screaming out, holding colorful signs that I can't read. Not because I can't read, I can, my mother taught me how._

_It's that I can't understand. There are big words there, long words that I don't know to spell. Totalitarian. Revolution. Dictator. Surrender. They are screaming and shouting, but not at my father's soldiers. It looks like they're singing._

_My mother comes up from behind me and hugs me._

"_Rinoa, you know you're not supposed to get close to windows."_

**3**

"Zone, get away from the fucking window!"

"One more shot, one more shot I swear..."

I turn to Watts.

"**Curaga."**

I feel the spell rush out of me, travel from the core of me to my fingertips and disperse right underneath them, and from it, spill into Watts' wound. Watts breathes deep, and I see the wounded flesh slowly close up, almost by itself. I have seen Curaga spells in action before, but nothing this good... at best, Curaga makes deep wounds flesh wounds, but doesn't close them up.

"I'm..."

"Still wounded, Watts, rest, okay, you're not in the line of-"

Zone's body is struck and he collapses on the floor. The owner of our little bunker screams. A volley of shots follow, doing away with the last of the window. I instinctively take my head between my hands to shield myself.

I look.

Zone's looking right back at me.

He's not breathing.

"No..." I hear myself say, "No... no, no no no no no...

I crawl on my hands and knees and get to him as bullets tear into the kitchen and shatter tableware. With his machine gun still in his hand, there he lies. I can see the wound. A gaping hole on the side of his forehead.

"Zone?" Watts tries to lift his head.

I don't say anything.

The machine gun smiles at me. I pick it up. I dislodge the clip and check it, just the way Irvine had taught me. Little more than half-full.

A bullhorn-amplified voice calls from outside.

"_Dissidents to martial law! You are surrounded! Lay down your arms and come out with your hands behind your head!"_

Seeing what I intend to do, Watts can manage "Rin... don't..."

I don't care. I crawl to the door. Watts tries to stop me, but one little push and he almost passes out from exhaustion.

I stand up.

"Please don't." he says.

"This is when it stops." I reply.

I open the door and pull the trigger.

**4**

_I'm ten years old and I'm pulling the trigger of the smallest caliber gun my father could find. The gun rattles in my hand. I miss the target by three feet. I frown. Despite everything, I still don't want to disappoint my father._

"_I missed." I say._

"_You'll get the hang of it." My father tells me, "The important thing is, you shouldn't have to use this."_

"_Why not? Doesn't it stop the bad guys? Like in the movies?"_

_He smiles and ruffles up my hair._

"_Yes, but the bad guy is, after all, a guy. I would never want you to... uhh, stop, anyone."_

**5**

I run towards whoever's in front of me, and fire at him. I hit, the bullets make the body twitch. I turn the gun and the hail of bullets find the guy next to him, and the one next to that.

They can't fucking hold me down. Nobody can hold me down, not anymore, not my father, not his fucking soldiers that always made life hell for my mother, didn't even rest when she was dead and under the ground. No, this is my _fuck you_ – he has taken enough from me. He has taken enough!

I reach out for one of the remaining soldiers, a swordsman charging at me. I hold my fingers out like a claw and his body twists, limbs contorting in ways they shouldn't. I can hear the bones snapping.

I hurl his broken body to one of his comrades. He falls, his machine gun rattles and the bullets catch another swordsman standing in formation.

"Come on!" I shout, "This the best you can do!?"

I narrowly duck a blade coming straight down. The guy doesn't stop, he shifts grip and swings it, horizontally this time, and I step to the side to get out of his immediate range. I grasp his helmet and snarl the spell, _Firaga_ and cook his head right inside the metal.

I let him go and pick up his sword. It's heavy, heavier than Squall's gunblade, but I can manage. I look to see a soldier crouched beside a portable com-unit, frantically requesting backup.

I call upon a blizzard, _Blizzaga_, and freeze him into an ice statue. With the sword, I slice his head clean off. It falls to the ground and shatters to a thousand pieces.

I listen in. In the distance, I can hear Timber crying out, screams, gunshots and the sound of my mother's city being subdued by my father.

I start to run in the direction of the outcry.

I'm coming. Salvation is coming.


	10. The Run Through Timber

"_**The Few Remaining Strands"**_

* * *

_Author's Note: For Chapters 8-12 to work, Timber would have to be like a real town, which means, much larger than it was in the game. I took a few liberties with a few aspects of the world of FFVIII for convenience's sake, one of which is the increase in town size.  
_

* * *

**9. The Run Through Timber**

**1**

On the Ragnarok and at ETA minus five minutes, Squall stood up and turned to all assembled. Quistis and Selphie and he would be squad leaders for standard strike teams of seven SeeDs for each: sharpshooter, close quarters weapon specialist, mid-range weapon specialist hand-to-hand combatant (which, in his squad, doubled for a very skilled swordswoman), field mage and field medic. Squall's squad didn't have a close quarters weapon specialist besides him; Quistis' had no mid-range weapon specialist and Selphie's squad had no field mage.

"Here's the plan," Squall said, "We don't have time to use the proper entrances, which Caraway will most likely have sealed. Nida's instructions are to bring the Ragnarok to the TV station. We'll land on the roof. From there on out, we scatter. Quistis, you'll try to find Caraway and talk some sense into him. You can either have Selphie back you up, or have her back me up."

"Where will you be headed?" Quistis asked.

"Rinoa. Have to reach her before they do something... drastic."

"Are you afraid they'll trigger her Limit Break?" Selphie asked.

"I'm hoping it won't come to that." Squall said.

The intercom buzzed before Nida's voice faded in.

"_We're almost there, get to the ramp."_

**2**

The ramp slowly descended, leaving them a very small jump down to the roof. The lights from the spaceship danced and lit up the night. Squall gripped his gunblade and leapt first, followed by his squad. Selphie and Quistis followed. Once they were off, Squall signaled Nida to turn the Ragnarok around and away.

With its departure, it filled their ears with the noise they were familiar with and comfortable in.

"Am I going alone?" Squall asked.

"Not in your life." Selphie said, "Me and my squad, we're coming with you."

"I'll find Caraway." Quistis said, "I can't guarantee anything in terms of talking sense into him."

"Then we'll run through the building." Squall said, "Your squad'll take the fire exit."

"Where's our razandevous?"

"Timber Maniacs, if we can. I think the fight is bound to be at it's thickest."

"Cool." Quistis said.

They scrambled. Squall and Selphie, side-by-side, ran to the roof exit of the building. Squall opened the door and went first, followed by Selphie and their squads.

**3**

Upon hitting ground, Quistis assigned squad formation. Martial artist Darius and swordsman Lane on point. Right behind them, Quistis herself. In the back, sharpshooter Nem and field medic Keli.

"Let's go." She said and delighted in the way her squad moved with her, as if they were one organism. Quistis guided her squad through Timber streets, often flanked on both sides by Galbadian soldiers exchanging fire or blows with Timber locals. Moving from cover to cover, from corner to corner, the scene they waded through always remained the same: bodies, passed out, beaten or dead. Broken shop windows with their contents hanging out.

A pool of cupcakes, crushed under jack boots and fighting.

Three streets in, Quistis knew that they had no idea how to find Caraway. Canvassing the city wasn't an option.

"Come on." Quistis said, and moved the squad along, this time, deliberately towards the sounds of Rinoa's half-baked revolution. The sound of a shop window breaking, followed by curses and the unmistakable march of jack boots alerted Quistis. She steered her squad in that direction, took a right turn, went through a back alley, and ended up in a dead end.

Quistis stopped and bore witness.

**4**

"I can handle her by myself." Squall said as they moved through the TV station to hit ground level. His voice was half-drowned by the footsteps of the twelve people crammed into one stairwell.

"You two have a past. That kind of thing always fucks with you, and the situation we're in, I'm coming to not let it."

"I can take care of myself."

"It's not you I'm worried about." Selphie said.

Squall didn't respond. He simply descended the floor and found the entrance to the studio. He kicked the door in, and his squad, followed by Selphie's, and both in standard formation, rushed inside.

There were three citizens, tied up, one of them with a bloodied face, on the ground. Right in front of the cameras, there were five Galbadian soldiers, each of them working with one of five different field com-casters. Around them, seven more soldiers, three with swords, two with machine guns, two with rifles, were simply standing guard.

Immediately, the barrels of the firearms and the tips of the swords were tilted in their direction, prompting a similar response from their squads. Squall, however, didn't lift his gunblade. Instead, he ordered his squad to be at ease. Selphie followed suit.

"Identify yourself!" one of the soldiers with a machine gun said.

"General Squall Leonhart of Ocean Garden." Squall said, "Where is the Sorceress?"

"That's what we're-"

One of the com-casters buzzed and vomited a static-infested, panicking voice.

"_She's here! She's at the train station!"_

"Lexa," Squall said, turning to his field mage, "LVL4 Fast, if you please. We have somewhere we need to be."

**5**

Two Galbadian soldiers were working one young girl when Quistis and her squad arrived. They had the girl, who was holding onto her picket sign for dear life, against a brick wall and were taking their time with roughing her up. Quistis could scarcely believe that they were actually kicking the poor girl when she was down and curled up in a ball, trying to protect herself.

"Hey!" Quistis called out.

The two soldiers turned, and her squad, almost by instinct, went into fighting stances. Quistis waited to be recognized. The soldiers sized them up, and probably just distinguished their uniforms.

"SeeD? What is SeeD doing here?" one of them asked.

"I am Lieutenant General Quistis Trepe, veteran of the Second Sorceress War, here representing Ocean Garden." She said, "I demand that you take me to General-"

"It's Field Marshal, ma'am."

"Fine, Field Marshal Caraway."

The two exchanged glances.

"Oh, and before we go," Quistis aid, and turned to her field medic, "Kole, if you will..."

"Yes, ma'am!" said Kole and rushed to help the girl.

**6**

Squall and Selphie moved their squads through the settling dust of Timber, through cracked sidewalks and trampled picket signs, as fast as they could. Under the influence of Fast, their perception of the world remained much the same, but it was like the world was smaller. They registered running from one end of Timber to the other as taking three or four steps: each step a giant leap in and of itself. There were no sounds, sights were still snapshots in slow succession.

The downside of the spell was that it was near impossible to communicate. So that when they reached the train station, Squall signaled with his hands for Lexa to cast Dispel.

The world came rushing in, sights and sounds. It took them a few moments to adjust to their environment moving at their speed.

A blinding flash overwhelmed them. They all lifted their arms to shield themselves. There was a hissing in the air, gaining pitch, growing sharper, louder.

Selphie clenched her teeth with disgust. She knew this feeling, she knew this sound, this sight – it was the same thing she saw in her nightmares.

"Great Hyne..." she heard Squall say, "Is it..."

"It is." Selphie answered, "She cast _Apocalypse_."

The sound gradually died down, along with the light. Selphie's heart was in her throat. Squall, for his part, felt like he was physically struck, along his entire body at once.

He stepped forward, as near to the rails as possible and shouted.

"Rinoa, _stop!_"


	11. The Sorceress Rises, II

"_**The Few Remaining Threads"**_

**10. The Sorceress Rises, II**

**1**

A soldier bumps into me. I don't hesitate. I grab his helmet and freeze it into a solid ice cube. I slam his head into the wall and it splinters into tiny little frozen pieces. I see them scatter, and I smile. Yes. Die.

I can taste blood in my mouth and it sets my teeth on edge.

I run along, and I can already see that I'm moving towards the train station. Souvenir shops with broken windows and scattered goods wait for me. I step over the corpses of those that followed me, those that believed in me.

Those that trusted me.

A Galbadian soldier leaps out, literally out of a staircase leading into the station, and comes at me with katals in hand. He swings, one, two, keeps slashing in quick succession, and all I can do is step back, retreat, to avoid harm, to avoid damage.

I find a moment and duck to the side, and away. I take three strides, then whip around and point at him. I feel a tingling sensation and the soldier meets his end at the hands of a pillar of burning lightning. I grin. Yes. This is my power.

I move on to the train station. I manage to take two steps towards the tracks before three soldiers, two with rifles and one with a machine gun appear.

"She's here!" one of them shouts into his mobile transceiver, "She's at the train station!"

I grin. Yes, she's here. Come and get me.

**2**

I can feel myself floating, I can feel my wings, natural extensions of me, as if I've had them all my life, beating behind me. I rush forward, tearing through the air like a bullet, and keep my palms open. They take aim.

None of them get a chance to fire. I slice through them like a knife through hot butter, and in passing, break the necks of two. The third one, the one carrying the machine gun, turns.

A chain lightning explodes on his chest and fries him inside of his standard-issue suit.

"There she is!"

A hail of bullets from either sides of the train station. I'm caught in the cross fire, and one of my wings gets shot. I see the event in slow-motion, the bullet tearing through the feathers and the magic that is keeping me afloat. I land hard, and I feel my shoulder dislocate. I flip myself on my stomach, feeling my wings disappearing, but don't feel their absence. It's as if they were never there. I use my good hand to rise, by which time, swordsmen rushing to close the distance. Before I can do anything else, they surround me. I hear the clicking of many rifles and I can almost feel the blades pointed at my throat. From what I can see, there's a solid force of twenty, maybe even thirty here.

Showtime.

**3**

Before they can react, I crouch down and into the ground, I stick the fingers of my good hand right into the dirt. The swordsman withdraw their swords, and I am sure the sharpshooters are aiming right at me, but this is their grave, and I just marked it.

I whisper the spell, not because I need to, but because I want to.

"_Apocalypse."_

**4**

The energy surges out of me – my core flows into the ground, and from the ground, I feel it spread out, like water through cracks on stone, seeping through the earth and moving, moving to surround me, moving to complete the circle.

I can see the world, and it's slowing down – the blade-tips are frozen in the air, the hammers of rifles mid-way to the barrel. No sounds, nothing, just this incredible feeling pouring out of me, bleeding through the crack that is me and into reality.

The glow seeps out of several points in the invisible, but exhilarating circle, and I can feel matter dissolving around me. Shifting, lessening, disappearing, fading... everything is fading.

I stand up, and I look at the soldiers around me. Their weapons are disappearing in small clusters, and the wave is moving outwards, reaching further, to vanish armor and cloth and skin and bone and existence.

I shiver, the feeling runs from my head to my toes, to my fingertips. I hear myself moaning with the ecstasy of it all – this doom, this certain, absolute destruction is killing me.

But out of the delight, out of the pure pleasure, I hear a voice, a familiar sound, breaking through, and it pulls me out of the afterglow.

"Rinoa, _stop!"_

**5**

I reel myself in, barely, and the world comes rushing in. The scent of stone and rusted metal... the smell of absence, that pang of something missing around me. The last dying whispers of the spell, electric, in the air. Sounds, in the distance, flooding the world, with visions of my father beating the city into submission.

I feel elated. I'm invincible. I'm untouchable.

And yet, I feel his touch on my shoulder, and I turn, and there they are, the eyes I lied into so many times.

"Hello, Squall." I say, and it's so right, this hello. I'm so new that we're meeting for the first time.

In the background, the transceiver left of one of the squads buzzes out my father's voice. He wants squads L through S, all gone now, to come in.

"Rinoa, you..." he hesitates, and I know that it's because what I have done is simply incomprehensible to him, "This needs to stop. Right now. I'm officially-"

I crack up. Officially. Is that even an option anymore?

He's not fazed, but then again, so few things earn a reaction from Mister I'm-Made-of-Ice.

"...here to put a stop to this. All of this."

"All of what, Squall, all of us dying under my father's iron fist?"

His eyes flare up. I know that look.

"People are dead because of you." He snarls.

"They're dead because my father's a tyrant, not to mention an asshole."

His voice breaks through again, repeating to know what happened to his soldiers. I broke them, father. I broke your toy soldiers, just like you broke mine.

"They are dead, because you didn't consider anything but the Cult of Rinoa Heartilly before blindly declaring Timber a free state. You had no idea what you were playing at."

"Hah! Is this the part where you lecture me by quoting a chapter from your cherished _Biblis Tactica_? If so, save your fucking breath, Squall, I am done being lectured. Especially by you."

"I can see that you've learned your lesson well enough to turn this place into a war zone. You don't understand a fucking thing! You have no idea how to conduct something like this! You're still that stupid little girl who thought a few declarations added up to a revolution, which is exactly what happened here!"

Who the fuck is he to talk to me like this? I turn and reach out, my fingers slowly curling intwards, in attempt to choke him silent. Selphie, her squad still up there at station level, instructs her sharpshooter to take aim. Heh... Squall will be on his knees before...

Wait.

Nothing's happening. No rush of pure magic, no amazing sensation, nothing. What the hell..?

He looks hurt. Genuinely hurt. He holds up his right hand and hurts me in kind.

"Odine ring." Squall says, "If you want to play it like this, you're gonna have to take me without the help of your powers."

I can't. I grit my teeth, fuck. I can't take him. I was never very good at one-on-one, physical confrontation.

I was never very good.

Zone... I see his corpse right in front of me, sprawled on the Deling rug, cold and dead. I can hear Timber around me.

I failed. This truth, absolute, washes over me, and with it, I lose my balance. I fall to my knees. Everything just pours out of me, and the next thing I know, I'm crying without restraint, defeated by SeeD, beaten, and where I belong.


	12. The Field Marshal

"_**The Few Remaining Strands"**_

**11. The Field Marshal**

**1**

Fury Caraway took a drag from his cigarette as two soldiers, privates first class by their uniforms, approached. The radio transceiver in his hand, he moved squads L through S to the train station, where his daughter was last spotted.

A second glance to whom the soldiers came with, dominated his attention. He kept the transceiver in his hand, but turned to receive his guests.

"Sir!" one of the privates said as they both saluted, "Lieutenant General Q-"

"I know who she is, private. I know all of the Second Sorceress War Veterans. Lieutenant General."

"General Caraway-" Quistis started as her squad stood at ease. One of them leaned against one of the pillars marking the entrance of the town.

"It's Field Marshal now." Caraway said.

"Field Marshal Caraway, I'll cut to the chase. Hyne knows we can do less with small talk. So, here it is: don't you think this has gone too far?"

**2**

_Caraway knew that, in a fight like this one, there was no such thing as going too far. He knew the positions; him and his wife, on either sides of the dinner table. Rinoa, in a safe place, bunkered up in her room so as not to get caught in the crossfire._

"_This is just like you, start to finish!" Julia said, "All she wants to do is to play in the garden! What's the big deal?"_

"_Julia, I don't know how far this Forest group has infiltrated into Deling, who their sympathsizers are. Rinoa is just a child-"_

"_She can't act like a child if you keep her cooped up in here! All she knows are these four walls, how much longer is this going to continue?"_

"_For as long as I think it's necessary for Rinoa's safety, my love, what else do you want me to do?"_

"_Can't you assign a guard detail or something to her, at least on the mansion grounds?"_

"_I'm already understaffed, Julia, you know that."_

"_You tell me that your daughter is all you care about, yet you can't inconvenience your soldiers a bit?"_

"_That's not what it is, damn it!"_

"_Were you or were you not understaffed when you sent a guard detail of four to pick us up right off the street, Fury!? Right from the playground! She just wanted to get ice cream, so what did you do?"_

**3**

"I declared martial law. She refused to abide by it and her group was inciting to riot. I think that's a crime by any reasonable estimate."

"They just wanted their freedom." Quistis said, "Is that so wrong?"

Caraway pursed his lips.

"I know that my daughter sees me as the Diablos of her little world, but I am a necessary evil. Vinzer refused to work with a vice president, therefore, I am the only person besides him to know anything about state affairs left. Nobody out there," he pointed towards Timber, ", know thing one about running a country, and they want to be in charge. It isn't just granting freedoms, Miss Trepe, it's knowing when to restrict them, and how much."

An explosion drew their attention. Caraway and Quistis both turned in the direction of the sound, and all they could see were colorful lights, lights that Quistis recognized, lights that she remembered.

"Holy Hyne..." Quistis said.

Caraway clicked on his transceiver.

"Squads L through S come in!" he said.

No response.

**4**

_No response._

"_Tell me!" Julia pressed on, interpreting his patient silence as a concession, "What did you do?"_

"_I used what resources I had to locate you when I found out that you'd gone AWOL, god damn it, what was I supposed to do!?"_

"_You were supposed to believe in my better judgment! All I did was to take her out to get some ice cream, that's all! What right do you have to deny it to her?"_

_Caraway threw his hands up and shouted his question:_

"_What the fuck would you have me do?"_

**5**

He knew the answer, but repeated his question anyway.

"Squads L through S, do you copy?"

Quistis and Caraway both held their breaths. Minutes passed, with Caraway repeating the call.

They both sighed in relief when the com-caster units buzzed in unison and a static-infested voice coming through said:

"_This is General Leonhart. I am with The White Sorceress. We are ready to negotiate, with Lieutenant General Trepe's mediation."_

Caraway held his transceiver and responded.

"There will be no negotiation. The total surrender of the Forest members-"

"_With all due respect, the only thing standing between you and a very pissed of Sorceress is us. If you don't want to take your only option, I can just as easily step out and let her eat you alive, and believe me when I say, she _will _eat you alive."_

"Don't threaten me, General."

"_Your squads L through S were obliterated with a single spell." _Squall said.

A few moments of silence ensued.

"_Your call."_

Caraway clenched his teeth.

"Fine." He snarled, "I'm standing down. We'll negotiate a settlement, with Lieutenant General Trepe's moderation."

"_Take your aide, or assign an aide, and come to the train station. Me, and Lieutenant General Tilmitt and our squads will clear out once you're there."_

"Understood."

Caraway shut off the line and slammed the transceiver down. Quistis, watching on, said nothing, but could see that even if Caraway wasn't defeated, he certainly felt that way.


	13. The Night Goes On

"_**The Few Remaining Strands"**_

**12. The Night Goes On**

**1**

Standing on the roof of the TV station, Squall was trembling. His entire being seemed to be made of liquid at that moment - dense liquid that was slowly completing its accumulation into a single drop, moving towards the fall. He felt like he could collapse any second.

He was wound so tight he could explode. Everything he had kept down, everything he had kept at bay was getting to him. He couldn't get used to this. The tension, rolling off of him, dragging him low. He couldn't. Some part of him wondered how Quistis was doing. Some part of him didn't care.

Warm, soft, small hands found his cheeks and only then did he realize that he had been standing there with his eyes closed.

"You're trembling..." Selphie said.

"I'm cold." Squall said.

Selphie simply put her weapon down and wrapped her arms around him. She felt him relax against her body, the white-knuckle-tight shivering gradually ceased. She roamed her palms across his back in small circles, to reassure, to put at ease. He slowly felt it all pour out of the knot in his chest, felt her caress unravel it.

"She was ready." Squall said, "She was ready to kill me tonight."

"But you knew that." Selphie said, pulling back without losing contact, "Or, at least, you knew that it was a possibility. Otherwise, you wouldn'tve brought the ring."

"She's got a taste for it now. She's not going to stop."

"Then we will be there to stop her."

"I don't want it to come to that."

"It's already come to that, Squall. But hey," One hand, warm, brushed against his cheek, ", you don't have to fight alone, you know. I'll be by your side."

Squall smiled.

"I'm so tired." She said, "I feel like I can just fall asleep right here. Can I nap? I think I can nap. I'm sure Nida'll wake me up. Can I, General?"

"He said five minutes, only another minute left."

"Just for thirty seconds. Thirty."

Squall was surprised at the laughter that just poured out of his mouth.

**2**

Quistis was surprised at the amount of curses that were just pouring out of their mouths.

"...so I guess all's forgiven for the last, I don't know, fuck knows how many years? Fuck that, fuck all of that – you owe us this, you owe me!"

"I don't owe you _shit!_ You're such a fucking child, Rin – what did you think dressing up in that weird get-up and shouting big words you only half-understand was going to accomplish? A soap box is a soap box, that's what-"

"Will both of you please back down for a minute!?" Quistis said, slamming her hands on the table, "We were just discussing how to go about outlining Timber's political system, it's day-to-day functioning! It should be a model-building process, not-"

"A Duke or Duchess? Seriously!?" Rinoa asked, "That the best you can do? What's next, taxes?"

"What else do you think is next, do you have any idea how these things work, any clue at all?"

"I want you to back off!" Rinoa said, "Give the people what you took from them, a say in their governance!"

"Do you have any idea what that word means, Rin, any clue at all?"

Quistis looked away, suppressing an urge to take both of their heads and smash them against one another. In the distance, she could see Ragnarok's lights, gleaming in the starless night. Quistis saw the Ragnarok take off and wished that it took her too and brought her home.

**3**

They were ready to be brought home as they got into the Ragnarok.

After all of them settled in, Squall picked up the phone embedded into the armrest and punched in the two-digit code for the cockpit. He rubbed his eyes. He wanted to sleep, and if it wasn't for an irrational fear of what he'd see if he fell asleep, he wouldn'tve bothered.

"_Yes?"_

"Nida. Slight change of course. You'll drop me off at Edea's house, and then go back to the Garden."

"_Yes, sir."_

"Thanks."

"You're going to see Matron?" Selphie asked.

"I need to know."

"Squall, you're running on two, three hours' worth of sleep."

"I'll rest on my way there."

Selphie didn't say anything, but her silence told him everything.

"I need to know, Selphie."

"I know... I know."

She shifted in her seat, trying to arrange her limbs in that precise configuration that'd allow her to sleep. One of her hands found his arm and stayed there.

Squall simply closed his eyes.

**4**

_Shadow-arms, like black snakes, bleeding out of the open door the open wound the gaping maw of a thirsting darkness and it is open, it's lips extending, ready to pull him in, ready to consume me, devour me eat me_

_And where is Daniel, where is my best friend? Has he already been swallowed, has he been eaten_

_It's coming closer but I can't move, I can't even scream, I want to, but I knew Daniel shouldn'tve gone in_

_Matron's room, I'm afraid of Matron's room_

_I can't escape, they'll get me, they'll get me, they'll get me, they'll get megetmegetmeget_

**5**

"_No!"_

Squal's head crashed onto the back of the seat in front of him, and he swung back, a sharp ache settling on his forehead. He rubbed the spot, and opened his eyes to meet Selphie's concerned gaze. He held out his hand. She took it and squeezed. He squeezed back. Nothing more needed to be said.

The intercom kicked in, and Nida's voice filled the passenger section.

"_We're almost there, sir. If you could get to the ramp..."_

Squall got up. Selphie's hand slipped from his.

**6**

Edea leaped out of her bed before she even gained full consciousness or before Cid could even react. She reached for her nightstand and pulled a gray sweater on. Barefooted, she quickly ran out of the house and into the garden.

The wind whipped her hair and she shivered. A sudden burst of light blinded her, and she lifted her arm to shield her eyes. Through it, she could see a shape, a young man's body, carrying a bladed weapon come down and leap to the ground.

With a deafening roar, the once-spaceship shot into the sky and disappeared, leaving only the night's blanket of darkness, and the soldier with a gunblade.

"Squall?" Edea asked, "Squall, is that you?"

"It's me."

"What happened?" She asked, concerned, "Why are you here so late?"

"I need to know something."

Edea's brow creased.

"What is it?"

"Tell me about Daniel."


	14. The Mother's Sin

"_**The Few Remaining Strands"**_

**13. The Mother's Sin**

**1**

Edea was glad that her husband had many distinct qualities, but no quality other than his simple way of not interfering stood out as much. Cid had, as he often did, asked her if he was needed, if there was anything he could do. Upon hearing that her answer was no, he simply bid them both good night and went back to sleep, leaving her to do what she needed to, what she didn't want to.

Squall looked like hell. There were dark circles under his eyes, a stubble on his cheeks. The way he was sitting there, softly breathing, just gave her the impression of a man on the verge of falling.

"You look tired."

"I am. But I have to know. I need to know."

"About Daniel?"

"Why don't the others remember, Matron? Why am I the only one?"

Edea hesitated. Once she answered, she knew, there would be no turning back. _Oh Great Hyne, help me._

"We decided that plucking Daniel out from their memories completely was the best way."

"We?"

"Me and Ultimecia."

**2**

"...what?"

"After I took her powers, she remained present in my mind, channeled herself into my thoughts. She taught me many things. Witch-craft. She taught me how to use my power, how to manipulate energies beyond what para-magic could allow."

Edea half-smiled.

"She was a teacher, Squall. You must understand that if I had any idea what all her lessons would lead up to..."

"What does that have to do with-"

"Because it will make telling what I have to tell you easier. You can give me that much, can't you?"

Squall didn't say anything.

**3**

"Every night, after you had gone to bed, I would begin by casting LVL4 Sleep on all of you. Nothing short of a Dispel would wake you up. I didn't want any of you to wake up to the noise. Then, I would fix the various symbols Ultimecia had had me set up in my room. Arcane runes, belonging to the time, she thought, of Vascaroon."

"What were they for?"

"To hold the magical energy in the room. To not let anything escape."

"Go on."

"Ultimecia wasn't satisfied with my cautious behavior. I wouldn't let her talk me into conjuring anything bad or dangerous. But she wanted me to experience the highs of pure magic, the euphoric sensations of creating something, of feeling like Hyne. Sometimes she made me conjure up these... dark things. Pure-magic creatures, too pure to exist by themselves. I would be their host, let them experience our reality for a short amount of time. Ultimecia kept these beings on a short leash, so as not to harm me. The runes kept the creature from you, and Ultimecia kept it from me."

Squall swallowed hard. He knew where this was headed.

"And one night, she had me summon this... mass... to this day, I don't even know what it is. I don't even know if it is something, or just some abomination made manifest by me. It didn't find me compatible as a host, it was looking for someone else."

"Daniel."

"I didn't notice until it was too late... I had made a mistake, or Ultimecia had made me, I still don't know... one of the runes was incomplete. Not enough for the creature to run loose, but enough to dispel, for instance, a Sleep spell..."

"But why Daniel? And how did I-"

"Ultimecia later said, if it had woken Daniel up, it would also wake up somebody close to Daniel, so as to have an alternative when the first body burns up... Even if so, I don't know what possessed Daniel to open the door..."

"He was curious. He was naturally curious." Squall said, "One of the few things about him that I do remember."

Edea lifted a hand.

"Please... don't interrupt. It's hard enough. Please."

"I won't." Squall said.

**4**

"Daniel opened the door. I locked it, I know I did, and I don't know how he opened the door, but he did. The thing just leapt into him. I screamed at Ultimecia, threatened her with killing myself to save him. Killing myself and ending her influence, right then and there... looking back, maybe I should have. Ultimecia told me that there wasn't a way to get the abomination out – that it would..." she choked, "...hollow him out and move to the next host. Not unless it perished in its current host... and that's when I saw you standing there, I panicked."

Edea sobbed. Squall could see tears trickling down her cheeks.

"I couldn't let it jump to you and devour you too, and I could see that it was reaching for you. You just passed out at the mere sight of it, and I completed the circle by shutting the door. It retreated... back into Daniel. I attempted to strike a bargain with it. I'd do whatever it wanted me to do, I'd owe it a boon. It refused. Said it could make him a sorcerer."

Squall raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything.

"But there are no sorcerers, the male body is unsuited for pure magics... it would..."

Edea took a moment. She wiped her tears but couldn't stop herself from crying.

"It was tearing him apart..." Edea said, now crying freely, "If it just left him, it'd come to me, but it wasn't leaving, it was trying to make room for itself, it was destroying Daniel from within... Great Hyne in Heaven..." Edea sobbed, "I... reached out and I... grabbed him... by the throat. And I s... I s-strangled him."

**5**

Edea cried. Squall didn't know whether to comfort her, or to beat her within an inch of her life.

**6**

The tea at the bottom of his mug was cold, but Squall relished a chance to do something else with his mouth besides curse and shout. Hyne, he was tired. Too tired to even dwell, but his question was unanswered.

"But even so, why did I forget, or, why did I remember after all this time?"

"Your own GF took the memory."

"_My_ G... wait... you mean _Griever_!?"

Edea nodded.

"You always talked about Griever, the strongest GF of them all. Lion-born, the noble Knight's GF. I needed something to suppress the memory – I couldn't let you endure the trauma of having seen pure black magic, much less your best friend... dead by my hand."

"So you-"

"I... or rather, Ultimecia and I, we... _created_ Griever and I implanted it into your mind. Junctioned him to you. I gave it the memory of Daniel. Griever is yours, Squall. Ultimecia gave it to you, and Ultimecia took it from you."

"So why do I remember?"

"Griever was supposed to protect you. But then, the Second War happened and Griever was destroyed. The memories it was meant to protect you from..."

Squall remembered Diablos saying, _no memory inhabited by junctioning a Guardian Force returns undamaged._

"And that's it." Edea said, with a heavy sigh, "That's who Daniel is. He is my sin."

Squall felt tired...


	15. The Confession

"_**The Few Remaining Strands"**_

**14. The Confession**

**1**

Quistis woke up to the screeching ring of the phone and cursed at herself for not sleeping on the other side of the bed (that she had reserved for her whip), closer to the damn thing. She squirmed towards it, the hygienic, plastic smell of the non-descript Timber Hotel room filling her groggy awareness.

"Yes, what?"

"_Quistis, it's me, Irvine. Did I wake ya?"_

"What time is it?"

"_It's about noon."_

"What do you want?"

"_I need to talk to you. Off the record."_

"Not the fucking typist, Hyne... fine. Bring coffee and breakfast, and lots of both."

"_Will do."_

Quistis slammed the phone down and figured that she had a good fifteen minutes before the cowboy could scrounge something up. It'd be a good fiftee...

**2**

"_Only fifteen?"_

"_It's all I can spare, I'm sorry." Rinoa said, "I wish... we could have more time."_

_Her hands slid into his shirt, and Irvine couldn't help but wish the very same thing. She pulled him in for a kiss, slid her tongue in to meet his. He was torn between just pushing her away and just losing himself._

_He opted not to lose himself. Not yet. He withdrew first._

"_So," she said, seeing that he was all serious, "What's up?"_

"_What do you know about Joaqim?"_

"_That he's Squall's man, here to keep tabs on me."_

_Irvine's eyes widened._

"_You knew?"_

"_I glimpsed it in his mind." Rinoa said._

_She laughed at Irvine's utterly confused and sincerely horrified expression._

"_Only kidding. Watts intercepted one of his calls."_

_Irvine chuckled meekly, trying to stop his heart from pounding in his temples._

**3**

Quistis jerked awake by a pounding sound. It took her a second to recognize it as a knock on the door this time. Gentle the first three knocks. More forceful on the next four and basically pounding on the next five.

"Great Hyne, Irvine, what's with the impatience?"

She crawled out of bed to notice that she wasn't wearing anything, at all. Irvine knocked again.

"Hold on a minute!" she shouted, praying he'd hear.

She found her bra and panties on the bed. She found her skirt on the armchair in the corner and her jacket draped over it. Her shirt was a white lump on the floor. She hastily put them on, opting to leave the jacket where it lay for a while.

Queen opened the door, revealing Irvine, with a tray carrying a king's feast and two thermoses' worth of coffee. She couldn't help but smile – she hadn't counted on him overdoing it. She let him in, seated him in the armchair, and started to eat.

Irvine silently watched her smear jam on two slices of French toast, cap it off with a slice of cheese in between, and slowly chew her way through it. By the second cup of coffee and the mid-point of the second sandwich, Quistis was too on edge to continue eating.

"What?" she asked, "Why are you so silent?"

"I killed Joaqim." Irvine said and killed her appetite.

"You- _what_..?"

**4**

_Irvine put the barrel of his handgun, Galbadian Deling PK380, to the back of the poor, unsuspecting informant's neck. He would probably feel the cold touch of the barrel and would maybe have a second to wonder what was going on before everything would end for him._

_Poor little SeeD._

_It was one thing for him to avoid Squall because of what he had done behind his back, but another thing that Squall had had them stalked for a month now. This little shit knew Hyne knows how many of their secrets... maybe he even knew..._

_Stop it. Focus._

_Finger on the trigger. Safety off. Bullet in the chamber._

_Aim._

"_The revolution is beginning. But this is just-"_

_Pull._

_The bullet tore through his neck and ended up in the small transceiver unit he had. Joaqim, if that was what the little fuck was actually called, fell to the ground, clutching at his throat. His body was wracked with spasms and he gurgled, coughed and gagged on his own blood._

**5**

"I killed your informant."

"Why would you say-"

"Put this gun," he pulled his PK380 out of its holster, "To the back of his neck, aimed to avoid his spine, and pulled the trigger while he was forming a sentence. I'd love to say it was painless, but it wasn't. He died choking on his own blood."

Quistis kicked the service cart towards Irvine and rolled backwards on the bed. She leapt to the side, grabbed her whip, and brought it around for a quick snap.

Irvine ducked by leaping to his feet and towards her, and she missed.

Quistis cursed herself – the problem with the whip was that it required wind-up to deliver a blow, and with Irvine pointing his gun at her, she wouldn't have that window. She was at the mercy of what she now seriously considered to be a psychopath.

"Easy, Quisty. I didn't come here to fight you."

"Why did you come here, then? To gloat?"

"Gloat? Why would I gloat? You think I'm proud of what I've done? No. No no no, I didn't come here to tell you about my glorious achievements. That's not it."

"Then what the fuck are you doing here?"

"To tell you this: you are the mediator, so mediate. Make sure the whole thing balances out in her favor."

"And why would I do that?"

"If you do that, she'll forgive the informant thing."

There was a moment of silence.

**6**

_There was a moment of silence. The gunshot seemed to echo, but Irvine knew that it was only in his head._

_The second gunshot was from outside._

_Joaqim had slipped out through the crowd once the restlessness had gotten them to the edge of clashing with the soldiers. Irvine had seen him make a beeline for the back entrance of the Timber Maniacs building, and had followed him there, only to find him by the radio transceiver, spitting clearance codes._

_Another gunshot, and with the rising shouts and screams, came the rattling of gunfire, accompanied by sounds of swords clashing._

_Irvine looked at the body twitching it's last. He couldn't just leave him there. He had no idea as to what he was supposed to do with the corpse bleeding out on the linoleum floor._

_He had killed the man, but he didn't know what to do with him._

**7**

"You pathetic little shit." Quistis snarled, "You even have to hide behind her skirt to even come close to making a threat. You killed a SeeD, and you're not even man enough to handle it." She stood up, watched the gun trace her move in an upward curve, "You can't touch me and you know it. Anything happens to me, and Squall would come for you, _and her, _and wouldn't stop until you were both dead. So put the gun away."

She casually folder her whip and put it on the bed. She then stepped over Irvine's gun-arm to see if anything was left of the breakfast.

"She's more powerful than you know." Irvine said, "She's..."

"We're done." Quistis said, seeing that one plate, with three slices of toast, was mostly intact, as was, by some miracle, the small jam jar.

She retrieved her breakfast as Irvine stood up. He hesitated. Quistis saw out of the corner of her eye that he was seriously thinking about pulling the trigger. He huffed in frustration and lowered the gun, but lingered.

"Was there something else?"

"I have something you want." Irvine said.

Quistis laughed.

"...that a fact?"

"Look, do you want Joaqim's body, or not?"


	16. The Morning

"_**The Few Remaining Strands"**_

**15. The Morning**

**1**

Squall woke up from a dreamless sleep to the sound of the waves lazily swaying across the shore. The gentle swishing came with the whisper of wind that rushed in through the ajar window, played with the thin, white curtains. He sat up, knowing that this was the first step to waking up, and tried to ignore his body begging for mercy. He was exhausted. Every muscle felt too slack to do anything.

He got up and got dressed. When he was at least close to a civilized human being, he got out of his room and into the foyer.

Sounds of tableware clanking came from the kitchen. Squall's stomach growled, he felt it claw at his insides. He hadn't had anything since Selphie's double-french-toast-jam-and-cheese sandwiches before heading out for Timber. With far more eagerness than he would ever admit to, he stumbled into the kitchen to find Cid making coffee.

Upon seeing him, the old man smiled and, holding up two mugs, asked:

"Coffee?"

**2**

Cid looked different than he remembered, so much older, somehow, and so much more at peace. The way he softly stirred his spoon in his coffee, the way he half-smiled at the taste of every sip...

"Is there something on my face?" Cid asked.

Squall noticed that he had been staring and suddenly, he was a little boy again.

"I'm sorry, sir."

"No need for the sir, Squall."

Squall didn't say anything.

"This is very difficult for her." Cid said, "Daniel is a very painful memory... do you know why she had an orphanage?"

"Why is that, sir?"

"We can't have children of our own. Her being a sorceress... we just can't. But she loved children. She loved the thought of being what her mother was to her, to children. Her mother was a nurse, did you know that?"

Squall shook his head.

"She was, according to Edea, the best mother and nurse a child could ask for. I never met her, unfortunately. Would have loved to."

Squall didn't know what to say.

The unmistakable whoosh of a hovercraft descending came from outside, from the garden. Squall drained the rest of his mug and put it down.

"Thank you for the coffee, sir."

**3**

Squall went outside to find a standard issue APC Hovercraft parked right in front of the orphanage's entrance. The side-door was open, and Selphie, in full uniform, was standing there, arms crossed and tapping her foot. When she saw him, she went up to him and, flinging her arms around his neck, pulled him in for a kiss. When she broke it, she delivered a light slap on his cheek.

"What was that for?" Squall asked.

"You didn't just ask me why I kissed you, right?"

"Selphie..."

"Okay okay, Hyne, I just can't stand that face!" Selphie said, "You should've called. I was worried. Had this nightmare."

Squall's heart skipped a beat.

"You had slit your wrists and I had no car available. I tried to make tourniquets out of towels, but they were too loose, and you were bleeding out. I finally found a van to take us to the hospital, and we went... We actually got there, but then I realized, I had tied the tourniquets on the wrong part of your arm, I had tied them around your forearm, and you had bled out on the way... you were DOA."

"I didn't slit my wrists."

"I know... thank Hyne."

Selphie sighed.

"Ready to go home?"

"Home? What happened in Timber..?"

"Quistis is still at it. Says it might take a few days, at least."

"Then, I'm ready."

"Matron!"

Squall turned to see Edea, a second before Selphie ran to her and hugged her. A startled Edea hesitated, but then, hugged her back.

**4**

"How are you?" Selphie asked, "How's the headmaster?"

"I'm... okay, all things considered. As for Cid, he's content. I think we are both doing better than you." Edea tilted Selphie's head up by her chin, "You haven't been sleeping well."

"It's Squall. He has horrible nightmares almost every night."

"I know." Edea said, "I know."

**5**

Squall and Selphie, after bidding Edea and Cid goodbye, settled into the hovercraft, and Squall signaled the pilot to lift off. Once they were on their way, there was only the sound of the slight chittering of the craft's outer chassis. Squall, unsatisfied with sitting across from Selphie got up and sat by her side.

They didn't talk at first.

"Did you find out?" Selphie asked.

"Yeah."

"Did it help?"

"No."

"Can I help?"

Squall looked at her quizzically.

"There's nothing anybody can do. You're helping by being here."

"I feel like I should do more."

"You don't need to. You're here," he interlocked his fingers with hers, ", that's more than all the help in the world."

Squall wondered how Quistis was doing.


	17. The Timber Accord

"_**The Few Remaining Strands"**_

**16. The Timber Accord**

**1**

Rinoa now knew what true delight looked like: it looked like Field Marshal Caraway, sitting on the opposite end of the oak table in his ceremonial uniform, arms crossed and trying to stare her down. But there was only one victor at this table, and it was the White Sorceress – sitting in _her_ ceremonial uniform, a white variation of the Galbadian Senior Officer uniforms, lightly tapping her fingers on the table.

Her father was flanked on both sides by his aides. She, in turn, had Watts, now a decorated hero, and Irvine by her side. She could see that her father was getting impatient, and she was loving it. She had all the time in the world.

Caraway opened his mouth to protest, and as if on cue, the double doors of his conference room were opened, letting through Quistis, who had Selphie, Squall, Seifer and Xu in tow. She was carrying a folder in her arms.

While the rest stood, Quistis pulled up a chair and sat down by the middle of the table.

She breathed in, exhaled slowly.

**2**

_Quistis breathed in and exhaled slowly as Irvine stopped abruptly by a damaged building off the main streets. It appeared to have been a bakery – from the scent of flour and freshly-baked pastries hanging in the air despite the damage. The inside was a mess – the counters were busted up, the product of hard labor scattered across the floor next to coins and paper Gil from the demolished cash register._

"_It's around here," Irvine said and went into the back. Quistis followed him._

"_What the-"_

_There was a smooth, metal door embedded into the wall, with a big, revolving lock on it. Irvine gripped the lock and turned it. The groaning of metal signaled the lock disengaging. Irvine held the door's handle with both hands and pulled it open. _

_White mist issued from within what Quistis now realized was a walk-in fidge._

"_He's in here." Irvine said._

_Quistis couldn't speak._

**3**

Quistis spoke.

"In this matter, with my mediation and after five... _long_ days of deliberation, an agreement has been reached. For all parties present, the conditions of the Timer Accord are as follows."

She opened the folder and pulled out the accord.

"Timber, hereby, is an autonomous state, tied still to the Capitol by way of taxation and law. It will be governed by a Duke or Duchess, whichever is available."

She flipped the page.

"Galbadian law, however, states that in a year and a half from today, the martial law must end, as no martial law can last longer than eighteen months. When the martial law ends, free elections for the president must take place. Field Marshal Caraway will, as per this agreement, uphold that law and will include the Timber State in the electorate."

"Like anybody will step up." Caraway said.

"Be that as it may," Quistis said, "That is the law."

"Can we just sign it, please?" Caraway asked.

"Agreed." Quistis said.

"Fine by me." Rinoa said.

Xu handed both parties fountain pens, filled by Quistis herself, so as not to have a minor pissing contest over an empty pen.

Quistis felt relief wash over her as they took the pens. She was simply glad to be finally out of this mess.

**4**

_Quistis hated that he hadn't gotten out of this mess._

_The corpse was far from a pretty sight. Irvine had laid the man down in a respectful position, thankfully, but that didn't lessen the blow of the killing wound. His throat was in pieces – small flaps of skin that once were expanding outwards had collapsed into the wound. Quistis could see sinews still sticking out. Joaqim's eyes were open, Irvine hadn't taken enough care to close them, and though they had frozen over in the cold, they still gave him an air of abject horror._

"_Why did you..." Quistis said, but had to stop. She changed the question, "Why did you avoid the spine?"_

"_I didn't want to risk paralyzing him. I wanted a clean kill."_

"_You call _this_ clean, you fucking cunt?"_

**5**

It hadn't been clean, but at least, the silence punctuated by the scratching of fountain pens assured her that it hadn't been all for nothing. The Timber Accord was being signed, and Quistis couldn't help but feel that the culmination of their efforts was too small a consolation prize.

"There." Caraway said as he laid down his pen, "Here you are."

Rinoa put down her pen.

"Thank you, Field Marshal." Rinoa said, "You should know that I will be running for president for when the martial law is over."

"Do your worst." Caraway said, "Even if you win, I give your administration six months on the outside before everything goes to shit. It's more than just signing papers and public speeches."

"I'll manage. It can't be worse than you."

"Now that we are done putting this together," Quitis said through clenched teeth, "I suggest we all get the _fuck_ out of here before I lose my temper."

"This is my home," Caraway said, "So, feel free to leave whenever and however you wish."

**6**

"_Yes, I call it clean. Call it something else if you wish. Thing is, he left this world a hero." Irvine said, "Died like a soldier, in the line of duty."_

"_He didn't deserve this." Quistis said, "The circumstances, he... I knew this was a bad idea. I fucking knew it."_

"_Spying on us? Yeah, that was one of your many shit ideas." Irvine said._

"_What else were we supposed to do..? She's a rogue Sorceress, she couldn't be allowed to roam free. Without a Knight, she would eventually go down the road to darkness, and-"_

"_Who says she doesn't have a Knight?" Irvine asked._

_Quistis could only glare at him._

**7**

Quistis watched as Caraway stood up, saluted her and left, accompanied by his two aides. She breathed a sigh or relief when they were gone.

Rinoa stood, Irvine took her arm and they started to move towards the door. Squall cut in, grabbed Rinoa by the arm and separated her from Irvine.

"Never forget," Squall said, "This was _our_ victory, not yours. We gave this to you. You owe us."

"I have to admit," Rinoa said, ", you guys are pretty dependable. You showed up sooner than I expected you to."

She turned and retook Irvine's arm, and they left, leaving a dumbfounded Squall behind.


	18. The Doctor's Appointment

"_**The Few Remaining Strands"**_

**17. The Doctor's Appointment**

**1**

Doctor Odine was busy monitoring the temperatures of three different industrial-size melting pots, the warmth each having to remain in a precise and difficult-to-maintain range.

When the doors of his office slid open, he clenched his teeth.

"Vat iz it with ze interruption? I said I did not vant anyzink!"

"Dr. Odine."

Hearing the familiar voice, Odine turned to see General Leonhart standing there, the ever-present gunblade in hand. Odine grinned.

"Ah, General. How iz ze ring working?"

"It field tested well." Squall said, "But that's not why I'm here."

"Oh?" Odine said, taking another glance at the levels.

"I know you've been cultivating your own ore for a few months now. A metallurgical compound capable of nullifying magical fields, yes?"

Odine froze. But, then again, he thought, it was inevitable that someone else would find out.

"I call it Odineum. It iz a difficult material, since no magic can be used to make it. It needs manual labor and machinery."

"What quantities can you refine it in?"

Odine turned to face him.

"I can have enough for, let's say, a safe. I can build a safe vit the amount I refine in a day."

"Can you make weapons?"

"If funds are zere, I can make anyzing."

"Funds?"

"Gil. But, zen again, you are ze President's son, so I zink zere is special funding for you."

Squall ignored the comment.

"How durable is the metal?"

"More zan zat gunblade."

"Good. I need you to make me a few things, but first, I need you to replicate this gunblade, forge a working replica entirely in Odineum."

Odine grinned widely.

"It vill cost you."

"I wasn't finished. Also, I'm here to pick up my previous order."

**2**

Laguna shuffled his feet. A habit from his youth, the need to burrow down into the carpeting, to do something, anything but stand there and wait.

"Will you stop?" Kiros asked, "You're making me nervous."

"…" Ward grunted.

"Him, too." Kiros translated.

"Look, I don't like waiting, okay?"

Ward smiled.

"That's what you always say." Kiros said.

"Because you alw-ah, there he is."

The trio turned to see Squall walking in their direction, gunblade resting on his shoulder. Laguna, unable to hide his excitement, stepped up and in doing so, slid a bit on the carpet. Squall stopped dead, Kiros and Ward couldn't help but chuckle.

"How'd it go?" Laguna asked.

"Is there a fund for my expenses?"

"Not officially." Kiros said.

"Whatever. I'd like to use it."

"What are you using it on..?" Laguna asked.

"Mister President, I will be honest. I wouldn't-"

"Wish you'd at least use my name." Laguna said.

"This is an official matter."

"Fine."

"I requested a string of Odineum items from the doctor. I don't know how up-to-date you are on the Timber situation, but there is a good chance that Rinoa will rise. It pays to be prepared."

"I thought you were on amicable terms." Kiros said.

"That changed. The few remaining strands between us were cut earlier today. It turns out, she had incited the riot because she knew we would intervene. We were played."

"Are you thinking of retaliating?" Laguna asked.

"No." Squall said, "But if the day comes that I need to, I want to be prepared."

**3**

Laguna accompanied Squall to the helipad, where his hovercraft was waiting. They discussed a number of things, especially Laguna's chapter in the _Biblis Tactica, _diplomacy, and Esthar's stance in the case of an incident. Squall would say that he had enjoyed their conversation, Laguna would say that he was upset Squall wouldn't call him father.

But it was too early, they both knew – too early still to go in that direction.

When they got to the hovercraft, Laguna took his hand and shook it.

"If there's anything I can do, about anything, any time, you just-"

"You'll be the first person I'll call. I _was_ going to call you earlier when the crisis first started."

"Why didn't you?"

"The official line was closed."

Laguna hung his head.

"And... I didn't want to bother you." Squall said.

Laguna smiled.

"Well, don't let me keep you." He said, his hands sliding into his pockets, "I'm sure you have somewhere you need to be."

Squall couldn't help but feel for the old man standing on the helipad, hands in pockets. He saluted him, and then entered the hovercraft. He sat down and the pilot closed the hatch.

"Everything okay, sir?" the pilot asked.

"Take me home." Squall said.


	19. Coda

"_**The Few Remaining Strands"**_

**Coda**

The sound of the door opening tore Selphie away from her book. She looked at the doorway to see Squall, standing there with his gunblade.

"Hello."

"Hey. Everything okay, sweetheart?"

"Everything will be fine." Squall said and didn't believe a word of it.

He walked to the bedroom they shared to stash his weapon away in its case first, and to put his jacket where it always waited for him. Upon leaving his burdens, he went into the kitchen and headed for the fridge. When he came to join her, he brought two glasses and a bottle of wine.

"How would you feel about some wine and a quiet night in?" Squall asked.

Selphie smiled.

"I'd feel good. Seriously, I thought you'd never ask."

Squall sat down next to her and poured the first glasses. They drank in silence, each one connected via their bodies touching, but disconnected in their thoughts. At the beginning of the second glass, Selphie broke the silence.

"Did you learn what you needed to learn?"

"I did. I wish I hadn't."

"Why?"

"I learned some things that I wish I didn't know. Knowing who Daniel is didn't give me anything. It's just a name, and a handful of memories belonging to things I'd rather not know."

Selphie didn't say anything.

"It's my burden now." Squall said, "What I know... it's mine to carry."

"You don't have to carry it alone." Selphie said.

Squall looked at her with more gratitude than he could fit into words. But he could, perhaps, put it into a single action.

As he stuck his hand in his pocket, Squall said,

"But I learned one thing that no GF, real or imaginary, can take away from me."

"What?"

"I can come home to you when it all ends."

Squall held out his closed hand.

"I have something for you."

One by one, his fingers opened. Sitting in his palm was a ring. Selphie's eyes widened.

"Is it..."

"It's Odenium."

"It's... wait, what?"

"Odine-ore. He calls it Odenium."

Selphie chuckled.

"Seriously?"

"Yeah."

"I swear, the ego on that man could dwarf the Lunatic Pandora."

Squall laughed.

"Anyway. The design is the same as mine." He said, "It has Griever's crest."

"It's... I... don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything."

"But this, Squall this is..."

Squall took her hand and put it on the ring. He put his hand on top of hers.

"I want you safe. I need to know that you're safe. No matter what comes after, no matter what's waiting, I need to know that you're safe."

Without a word, Selphie took the ring and slipped it on her finger. It was a perfect fit – felt like it belonged there. Selphie pulled Squall in for a kiss, and Squall relented. From the contact point, a warmth spread out inside him, and she finally allowed the last few days to spill out of her.

Squall held her as she cried, as she said Zell's name and then simply allowed it all to spill out. He hoped to comfort her in telling her that they had made it, that they would be alright.

He didn't believe it, and neither did she, but it mattered that he had said it.


End file.
